Classic TV Shows That Aired On CBS

Founded as the Columbia Broadcasting System in 1927, CBS began it's television operations in 1941 after a long successful run in radio broadcasting. CBS has since grown to become one of the most-watched networks having produced and aired several of the most popular programs in television history.

Browse our collection of the best TV shows that aired during primetime on CBS from 1950 to the present day.

All in the Family is a sitcom that aired on CBS from 1971, to 1979. In September 1979, a new show, Archie Bunker's Place, picked up where All in the Family had ended. This sitcom lasted another four years, ending its run in 1983.

The Andy Griffith Show is a sitcom that aired on CBS from 1960 until 1968 about a widowed sheriff in the fictional small community of Mayberry, North Carolina. His life is complicated by an inept but well-meaning deputy, Barney Fife (Don Knotts), a spinster aunt and housekeeper, Aunt Bee (Frances Bavier), and a young son, Opie. Local ne'er-do-wells, bumbling pals, and temperamental girlfriends further complicate his life.

The Bob Newhart Show is a sitcom that aired on CBS from 1972 to 1978 starring Bob Newhart who portrays a psychologist having to deal with his patients and fellow office workers. The show was filmed before a live audience.

Cagney & Lacey is a sitcom that aired on the CBS for seven seasons from 1981 to 1988. A police procedural, the show stars Tyne Daly and Sharon Gless as New York City police detectives who led very different lives: Christine Cagney (Gless) was a single, career-minded woman, while Mary Beth Lacey (Daly) was a married working mother. The series was set in a fictionalized version of Manhattan's 14th Precinct.

Dallas is a drama that revolves around the Ewings, a wealthy Texas family in the oil and cattle-ranching industries. The series won four Emmy Awards, including a 1980 Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series win for Barbara Bel Geddes. Throughout the series, Larry Hagman stars as greedy, scheming oil baron J. R. Ewing. The show also starred stage/screen actress Barbara Bel Geddes as family matriarch Miss Ellie, and movie Western actor Jim Davis in his last role as Ewing patriarch Jock Ewing before his death in 1981.

The Dick Van Dyke Show is a sitcom that aired on CBS from 1961 until 1966 that starred Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore. It was produced by Carl Reiner with Bill Persky and Sam Denoff. The music for the show's theme song was written by Earle Hagen.

The Dukes of Hazzard is a comedy series that aired on the CBS from 1979 to 1985 about "The Duke Boys", cousins Bo and Luke Duke, who live in a rural part of the fictional Hazzard County, Georgia with their attractive cousin Daisy and their wise old Uncle Jesse, as they race around in their customized 1969 Dodge Charger stock car, christened (The) General Lee, evading crooked county commissioner Boss Hogg and his inept county sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane, and always managing to get caught in the middle of the various escapades and incidents that often occur in the area.

Everybody Loves Raymond is a sitcom that ran on CBS from 1996 to 2005. Many of the situations from the show are based on the real-life experiences of lead actor Ray Romano, creator/producer Phil Rosenthal and the show's writing staff. The main characters on the show are also loosely based on Romano's and Rosenthal's real-life family members.

Family Matters is a sitcom about a middle-class African-American family living in Chicago, Illinois, which aired for nine seasons. The series was a spin-off of Perfect Strangers, but revolves around the Winslow family. Midway through the first season, the show introduced the Winslows' nerdy neighbor Steve Urkel (played by Jaleel White), who quickly became its breakout character and eventually a main character. Family Matters aired from 1989 to 1997 on ABC and on CBS from September 1997 to July 1998.

Father Knows Best is a radio and television comedy series which portrayed a middle class family life in the Midwest. It was created by writer Ed James in the 1940s, and ran on radio from 1949 to 1954 and on television from 1954 to 1960.

Get Smart is a comedy series that satirizes the secret agent genre that aired on both NBC and CBS from 1965 to 1970. Created by Mel Brooks with Buck Henry, the show starred Don Adams (as Maxwell Smart, Agent 86), Barbara Feldon (as Agent 99), and Edward Platt (as Chief).

Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. is a sitcom that originally aired on CBS from 1964 to 1969. The series was a spinoff of The Andy Griffith Show, that featured Gomer Pyle's trails and tribulations in the military.. The show ran for five seasons and a total of 150 episodes.

Green Acres is a sitcom starring Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor about a couple that moves from New York City to a country farm. Produced by Filmways as a sister show to Petticoat Junction, the series aired on CBS from 1965 until 1971.

Gunsmoke is a western drama series starring James Arness that took take place in and around Dodge City, Kansas, during the settlement of the American West. The show ran for 20 seasons from 1955 to 1975 on CBS, and stands as the longest-running prime time, live-action drama with 635 episodes.

Have Gun — Will Travel is an western drama series that aired on CBS from 1957 through 1963. It was rated either number three or number four in the Nielsen ratings during each year of its first four seasons. It was one of the few television shows to spawn a successful radio version.

Hawaii Five-O is a police procedural drama series set in Hawaii that aired for twelve seasons from 1968 to 1980 The show featured a fictional state police unit run by Detective Steve McGarrett, portrayed by Jack Lord. The theme music composed by Morton Stevens became especially popular. Most episodes would end with McGarrett instructing his subordinate to "Book 'em, Danno" sometimes specifying a charge such as "murder one."

Hogan's Heroes is a sitcom that aired on CBS from 1965 to 1971 set at a German prisoner of war camp during the World War II. Bob Crane had the starring role as Colonel Robert E. Hogan, who coordinated an international crew of Allied prisoners running a Special Operations group from the camp. The program also featured Werner Klemperer as Colonel Wilhelm Klink, the commandant of the camp, and John Banner as the inept sergeant-of-the-guard, Schultz.

The Jeffersons is a sitcom that aired on CBS from 1975 until 1985 that chronicled the Afican-American Jefferson family who had recently moved up the socioeconomic ladder. The Jeffersons is the longest-running sitcom with a predominantly African American cast in the history of American television.

Doug Heffernan is just your ordinary deliveryman for the International Parcel Service, but his family is anything but normal. Along with his wife Carrie, Doug lives with Carrie's father Arthur (Seinfeld regular Jerry Stiller), who is a few cards short of a full deck. Arthur is known for his incoherent outbursts and misplaced anger.

Knots Landing is a primetime drama series that aired from 1979 to 1993 on CBS. Set in a fictitious coastal suburb of Los Angeles in California, the show centered on the lives of four married couples living in a cul-de-sac, Seaview Circle. Initially intended to be a Scenes From a Marriage-type drama series, storylines also included rape, murder, kidnapping, assassinations, drug smuggling, corporate intrigue and criminal investigations. By the time of its conclusion, Knots Landing had become one of the longest-running primetime dramas on U.S. television after Gunsmoke and Law & Order, and tied for third place with Bonanza.

Lassie is a drama series that follows the adventures of a female Rough Collie named Lassie and her companions, human and animal. The show was the creation of producer Robert Maxwell and animal trainer Rudd Weatherwax and aired from 1954 to 1973. One of the longest running dramatic series on television, the show chalked up seventeen seasons on CBS before entering first-run syndication for its final two seasons. Initially filmed in black and white, the show transitioned to color during 1965.

Leave It to Beaver is a sitcom about an inquisitive but often naïve boy named Theodore "The Beaver" Cleaver and his adventures at home, in school, and around his suburban neighborhood. The show also starred Barbara Billingsley and Hugh Beaumont as Beaver's parents, June and Ward Cleaver, and Tony Dow as Beaver's brother Wally. The show has attained an iconic status in the United States, with the Cleavers exemplifying the idealized suburban family of the mid-20th century.

The Danny Thomas Show (known as Make Room for Daddy during the first three seasons) is a sitcom which ran from 1953 to 1957 on ABC and from 1957 to 1964 on CBS th followed the misadventures in the lives of the Williams family.

The Mary Tyler Moore Show is a sitcom that aired on CBS from 1970 to 1977. The program was a television breakthrough, with the first never-married, independent career woman as the central character: "As Mary Richards, a single woman in her thirties, Moore presented a character different from other single TV women of the time. She was not widowed or divorced or seeking a man to support her.

M*A*S*H is a medical-military-comedy series, adapted from the 1970 feature film MASH that follows a team of doctors and support staff stationed at the "4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital" in Uijeongbu, South Korea, during the Korean War. M*A*S*H's theme song featured an instrumental version of the song "Suicide Is Painless", which also appears in the original film.

Mission: Impossible aired on CBS from September 1966 to March 1973 and chronicled the adventures of the Impossible Missions Force (IMF), a team of government spies and specialists who were offered "impossible missions" (should they decide to accept them) by the unseen "Secretary".

The Munsters is a sitcom that aired on CBS from 1964 until 1966 depicting the life of a family of monsters. It stars Fred Gwynne as Herman Munster and Yvonne De Carlo as his wife, Lily Munster. The series was a satire of both traditional monster movies and popular family entertainment of the era, such as Leave It to Beaver.

Murphy Brown is a sitcom that aired on CBS from 1988 until 1998 that starred Candice Bergen as the eponymous Murphy Brown, a famous investigative journalist and news anchor for FYI, a fictional CBS television newsmagazine.

The Muppet Show is a American television programme produced by puppeteer Jim Henson and featuring Muppets. After two pilot episodes were produced in 1974 and 1975, the show premiered on September 5, 1976, and five series were produced until March 15, 1981, lasting 120 episodes.

My Three Sons is sitcom that ran from 1960 to 1965 on ABC, and moved to CBS until its end 1972, that chronicles the life of a widower and aeronautical engineer named Steven Douglas (Fred MacMurray), raising his three sons.

The Petticoat Junction is a sitcom that aired on CBS from 1963 until 1970 about a widow and her three daughters who operated a hotel on the outskirts of a small rural town. The girls' feeble-minded Uncle Joe often came up with zany ideas that put the hotel in jeopardy.

The Twilight Zone is sci-fi anthology series created by Rod Serling that aired on CBS from 1959 until 1964. Each episode is a mixture of self-contained drama, psychological thriller, fantasy, science fiction, suspense, or horror, often concluding with a macabre or unexpected twist. A popular and critical success, it introduced many Americans to serious science fiction and abstract ideas through television and also through a wide variety of Twilight Zone literature.

The Waltons is a period drama series that aired on CBS from 1972 to 1981 that is based on the book Spencer's Mountain and a 1963 film of the same name. The show is centered on a family in a rural Virginia community during the Great Depression and World War II.

WKRP in Cincinnati is sitcom that aired on CBS from 1978 to 1982 that featured the misadventures of the staff of a struggling fictional radio station in Cincinnati, Ohio. The ensemble cast consisted of Gary Sandy, Howard Hesseman, Gordon Jump, Loni Anderson, Tim Reid, Jan Smithers, Richard Sanders and Frank Bonner.

Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids is an animated series created, produced, and hosted by comedian Bill Cosby, who also lent his voice to a number of characters, including Fat Albert himself. The show premiered in 1972 and ran until 1985 (with new episodes being produced on an "on and off" basis during that time frame). The show, based on Cosby's remembrances of his childhood gang, centered on Albert (known for his catchphrase "Hey hey hey!"), and his friends.

Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! is the first incarnation of the long-running Hanna-Barbera Saturday morning cartoon series, Scooby-Doo. It premiered on September 13, 1969 at 10:30 a.m. EST and ran for three seasons on CBS as a half-hour long show.

Underdog is an American animated television series that debuted October 3, 1964, on the NBC network under the primary sponsorship of General Mills, and continued in syndication until 1973, for a run of 124 episodes.